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Posts Tagged ‘questions’

Can you believe that we’re already in February? 12.33% of 2011 has already gone! So how have you spent the first 12% of 2011? Are you on target to achieve your marketing goals?

In fact today is February 14th – Valentine’s Day. It is the day for publicly celebrating romantic love. But that’s another story. I always take this opportunity to remind my clients to focus particularly on their marketing relationships. Accomplishing your sales and profit goals require good relationships with others – especially your prospects, customers and employees.

In February I urge my clients to re-establish their marketing relationships for another good reason; to regain momentum. As we all know, the New Year usually kicks off with new resolutions, high expectations and motivation but by early February, we tend to lose momentum.

Achieving goals is not always easy. How many times have you set a goal and not achieved it? Well, read on and hopefully this will help you hit the bullseye.

To achieve success with your sales and marketing goals, you need to answer the following critical questions:

Do you know what to do? – knowledge

Do you know how to do it ? – skill

Do you know why you want to do it? – motivation

The most important question, yet the least understood, is the last one. Why it is important for you personally to achieve that specific goal. Until you can answer this question, you will not be fully committed to your goal.

So, don’t forget…12.33% of the New Year has already been and gone. Isn’t it time to re-visit your marketing, sales and profit goals?

Business success depends on your ability to discover “under-recognized” or changing needs and fulfilling them with creativity, wisdom, empathy, and understanding that no one else can demonstrate. You’ll occupy an enviable position in your market if you can discover and solve problems people (prospects, customers and competitors) may not even be able to articulate clearly.

Discover and solve the biggest, most important and impactful problems in your marketplace and your reward will be limitless. How do you do this? A good starting point to get clarity about what problems your marketplace is facing and trying to solve is with your prospects and customers. Ask them questions that will uncover the most important opportunities they need and want to exploit and problems they need and want to solve. Then listen to them attentively with your whole body, hanging on their every word.

To become a master at exploiting the opportunities and solving the problems, interpret and internalize the answers provided by your prospects and customers. Then use your organisation’s full arsenal of creativity, innovation and resources to deliver the best solutions. Do this and rich rewards await you.

Can you identify an overlooked sector of your market that you can serve profitably, better than anyone else? Can you identify an aspect of your marketplace offerings where customers are being forced to compromise, to which you can add unparalleled value? These are examples of rich reward and huge wealth creation areas.

Marketing, done right, is ridiculously simple – not necessarily easy. In its purest and most effective form, it’s just about figuring out what people want and giving it to them when and how they want it. Nobody does this better than silent marketers.

Is it possible for you to arrive at the right problem definition or provide the best solution without significant input from your customer? I don’t think so.

You must satisfy and make your customers happy or very soon you would have no business. Instead of focusing on making a profit, you must focus on creating value that matters to your customers. What do they value? What are their needs, wants and aspirations? What will make them richer, happier and their lives easier? Identify these carefully and provide the best solutions for each and they will love you. They will open their wallets and willingly spend their hard-earned money with you. Moreover, they will bring their friends, family members and colleagues to buy from you.

Don’t guess what you think would satisfy your customer. Experience shows that these are usually way off the mark as they tend to be based on your wrong assumptions. Don’t try to guess the answers, as tempting as it might be. Keep it simple and do the simplest and most obvious thing – ask them. Then listen attentively to everything they say and respond appropriately to your newly gained marketplace insights.

How can you get close to and know your customers intimately? Listen to them talk about themselves – their dreams, fear, opportunities, problems, etc. Instead of telling them how wonderful you are, listen to them. They will, in effect, tell you how you can help them buy effortlessly from you. Your own subsequent communication, in response, would be right on target as a result. This is efficient and effective. This is how you achieve excellence in marketing. Dare to be different. Embrace and practice silent marketing.

As I said at the beginning, marketing is about figuring out what people want and giving it to them when and how they want it. Silent marketers do this better than anybody else. Be a silent marketer. What do you think? Share your comments or questions with the world now.

You can change the world by thinking of others before you think of yourself.

I’m sure you’re familiar with traditional sales and marketing. They’re based on the premise of the ‘gift of the gab,’ coercion, interruption, shouting, and broadcasting. There’s lack of trust. This is, in my opinion, passé. Silent marketing (listening) is the wave of the future.

How did we get to the mistrust?

In the business world, sales and marketing is justifiably perceived by many as sleazy. As a result, by the time a prospect gets to your website or starts to interact with you they’re already very weary and sceptical. Well, can you blame them? It’s no wonder that prospects believe no one. They’ve experienced being conned, yelled at, interrupted, bullied, tricked, deceived, manipulated, and sold many times. And they’re tired.

What is (and why) Silent Marketing?

Silence is golden. Saying nothing is preferable when you’re trying to know and understand your prospects and customers. Silent marketing is the perfect answer. It focuses centrally on the interest of the customer. And it is not as dumb as it might first appear, even though it is counterintuitive. It obeys perfectly our capitalist market economy’s fundamental law. You will only get what you want if you help others get what they want. Your first task is to ask great questions and listen silently to your target market (prospects or customers) to find out what they want. And then offer it to them, on their terms.

Listening is very important. When you listen, you understand. When you understand, you can empathize. And when you empathize, you’ll discover the real meaning of service. Silent marketing demands empathy. It is not about sleaze, blowing your own trumpet, or the gift of the gab. It is about listening attentively with care, understanding what the market needs and wants and giving it to them.

This is why Silent Marketers are great interviewers and listeners. You cannot be a great marketer unless you’re a great listener. And you cannot be a great listener until you learn to be silent. Learn to listen – really listen. And when you’re listening, you’re silent. People love that. It shows that you care and respect them. Well, don’t you?

My mother used to tell me from an early age, “Silence has the loudest voice. You scream loudest when you’re silent. You must be silent to touch souls.” Sometimes saying nothing says the most, and you learn at the same time. You don’t learn new things while you’re talking.

The Insanity of “Shouting” Marketing

One form of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result. I saw a brilliant bumper sticker recently in America, which says “Honk if you hate noise pollution.” I love the sticker because it sums up the lunacy going on in marketing and advertising today. Marketers and advertisers know that we’re all fed up with the marketing noise everywhere and want to avoid it. Rather than find a solution to remove the noise altogether, many marketers are looking for ways to “out-shout” their competitors. They want to shout the loudest. It is madness. You will always find someone who can shout louder. The smart strategy is to do something totally different. Why not do the opposite of what annoys people – i.e. shut up and listen? I’ve only ever met one person who likes advertising and he’s an advertising agent. Silent marketing brings sanity to business.

Let us (marketers) be silent so that we can hear the whispers of the market. It is difficult to find your ideal customers amidst the current marketing noise. Customers (that’s human beings, in case we’ve forgotten) prefer silence. I love this quote from Ausonius, “He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.”

Here’s my take on it: Your speech will be right on target after you’ve carefully listened attentively to everything the person has to say. If you’ve listened well, you’ll know exactly where the person is coming from and what they really want.

Selfishness versus Market focus

Traditional marketing comes across as selfishness. Silent marketing is market focused and puts the interests of the prospects and customers centre stage. Talking is about meeting your needs – selfishness; listening is about meeting theirs – market focus.

People (that’s you and me) hate being sold but they love to buy. If the heart buys, the head will follow. But you can only engage the heart through empathy and emotional bond. Silent marketing is your fastest route to developing strong empathy and emotional bond with your market.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts with the world below. I, for one, value your comments. Thanks.